Laurie and Lila
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Way to go, Ilia!
Meet the 2008 ASPCA Dog of the Year
Ten-year-old Cole Massie of Los Angeles, CA, may live with cerebral palsy, but he has all the support a kid could want, thanks to a very special black Lab/golden retriever mix named Ilia.
Recently crowned ASPCA Dog of the Year as part of the 2008 Humane Awards program, Ilia performs service duties like bringing items to Cole in his wheelchair and opening and closing doors. But the pooch also has that special healing touch that can’t be taught. “He provides amazing incentive to Cole during therapies, doctor’s appointments and procedures,” says Cole’s mom, Michelle Massie. “He calms, inspires and motivates my son far better than anyone ever has."
Or, as Cole sums it up: "I like when he lies next to me in bed at night and we listen to Harry Potter on CD, and that he helps to clean me when I'm in the bath by licking my face and arms. He's my furry brother and best friend—and a serious bed hog!
This past July, three years after boy and dog were paired by the nonprofit Canine Companions for Independence, Cole was faced with a difficult, but life-changing surgery. “He had walked on his toes, and his feet were totally rolled in,” says Massie. “The operation would allow him to use his feet and free him of the wheelchair.”
“Cole was frightened by the idea of surgery at first,” remembers Massie. “We explained how much more independent he’d be afterward, but he wasn’t buying it. Finally, we told him that if he had this procedure, there was a very good chance he’d be able to walk Ilia on his own—with no parents and no walker." After that, says Massie, "Cole would stroke the dog’s head in bed each night and whisper, 'I will walk you, Ilia. I will walk you.'"
After much coaxing, Cole underwent the surgery in Summit, NJ, and Ilia traveled more than 7,000 miles to be by the boy's side. The ten-year-old is now on his way to becoming an independent walker—and his dedicated service dog will be with him every step.
The entire family will attend the ASPCA Humane Awards Luncheon in New York City this October 30, where Ilia will be honored along with seven other extraordinary animals and people.
P.S. We'd like to remind you, pet lovers, that even heroes have their quirks. As Massie reveals, “Ilia knows 46 commands, but he won’t fetch!”
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
The Writing Class
Just finished this book by local author, Jincy Willett.
Entertaining, but not enthralling, however, this quote could be mine, run on sentence and all, if I read more classics...
"Feeling an existential moment coming on, Amy got a Heath bar out of the glove compartment, switched on the interior light, and got out Carla's mysterious letter. Amy ate too much and probably drank more than she should, but her only true addiction was reading. The Lawrence Durrell quartet, which she hadn't even enjoyed, had gotten her through the protracted, awful death of Max, and Charles Dickens had seen her through the loss of each parent, and one rainy afternoon, on board a Boeing 727 with faulty landing gear bound for a dubious touchdown in Pensacola, Florida she had refused to assume the crash position without her open paperback copy of Revolutionary Road. Nothing was truly unbearable if you had something to read."
Amy, the central character, puts lists on her blogs. One list is Funny Looking Words, which contain disembosomee, phlebotomist,
loblolly. Another is Novel Hybrids, such as, Old Man Riverdance, Gone with the Window for Dummies.
Certainly elicited a chuckle, if not a true outloud laugh.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The Story of Edgar SAwtelle
I've spent days and nights enthralled with this book, certain that I'd recommend it to everyone I could think of, then I got to the end. I felt so cheated! 99% of the book was compelling and inspiring, but that last 1% makes me warn - there's a BIG letdown at the end.
Monday, September 15, 2008
A Prayer for today and tomorrow and...
It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No programme accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
—A prayer/poem by Archbishop Oscar Romero
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No programme accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
—A prayer/poem by Archbishop Oscar Romero
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Web wonders
Every once in a while I would lose (or think I lost) pictures on my point and shoot camera. It was totally evident this morning when I went to download pictures and the ones that came up were ones I had take three weeks ago that I thought I had lost. I knew I had just taken several different pictures yesterday that were nowhere to be found.
I got brave and looked for a solution and found FIXYA.
I got a quick response that solved my dilemma. I now have both sets of pictures! I'm not sure what makes it happen, but, at least, I think I can find any future lost ones. Yea!
Grace overflowing
The title of the the retreat, sponsored by St. James Women Together, and led so beautifully by Katie and Peter Hodsdon.
Here a few pictures from the many meditative places Marilyn's garden calls you to. As you can see in one photo, even the birds came. Their songs filled the spaces.
Here a few pictures from the many meditative places Marilyn's garden calls you to. As you can see in one photo, even the birds came. Their songs filled the spaces.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
hmmm - keep or toss???
but I could use it for rubber stamps or sewing supplies.
help me, someone, please!
an addendum - Michael, minimalist Michael. stepped up and said I couldn't possibly get rid of it. We threw some other stuff out and put it right back.
I'm doomed !
Food for thought for educators and parents
Verizon's Thinkfinity.org recently hosted a special Spotlight Session at the National Educational Computing Conference in San Antonio to focus on the needs of the 21st Century Learner. Thinkfinity Champions author Peter H. Reynolds fablevisionand actor Eric Close led participants through the session to describe the characteristics of a 21st Century learner. The images below are graphical representations of that discussion illustrated and created by Peter H. Reynolds. The first is from the brainstorming, the second is the finished product.
Hope these brighten your day!
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It's what sunflowers do. - Helen Keller
I feel validated!
I've always felt kids just come the way they are and while you do everything in your power to help them grow into God-loving, kind, intelligent, compassionate, responsible people, sometimes it just doesn't work.
Here's an article I found in Newsweek that gives an explanation.
The title is, "But I did Everything Right!"
If there is one thing experts on child development agree on, it is that kids learn best when they are allowed to make mistakes and feel the consequences. So Mom and Dad hold back as their toddler tries again and again to cram a round peg into a square hole. They feel her pain as playmates shun her for being pushy, hoping she'll learn to back off. They let their teen stay up too late before a test, hoping a dismal grade will teach her to get a good night's sleep but believing that ordering her to get to bed right now will not: kids who experience setbacks rather than having them short-circuited by a controlling parent learn not to repeat the dumb behavior.
But not, it seems, all kids. In about 30 percent, the coils of their DNA carry a glitch, one that leaves their brains with few dopamine receptors, molecules that act as docking ports for one of the neurochemicals that carry our thoughts and emotions. A paucity of dopamine receptors is linked to an inability to avoid self-destructive behavior such as illicit drug use. But the effects spill beyond such extremes. Children with the genetic variant are unable to learn from mistakes. No matter how many tests they blow by partying the night before, the lesson just doesn't sink in.
The discovery, reported last December, is part of what is fast becoming the newest frontier in studies of why children turn out as they do. Since the first advice book for American parents appeared in 1811, the child-rearing industry, as well as researchers who have made child development a science, have assumed that, although every child is an individual, there are certain universals. If parents are too take-charge about homework, the child becomes disengaged and eventually gives up; if they are warm and affectionate, kids don't act out. But while most children do respond the way research shows, there have always been "outliers," kids who don't turn out the way experts promise.
After years of ignoring those children, a few scientists now realize that they are telling us something that promises to revolutionize our understanding of child development. In an echo of "personalized medicine" (matching drugs to people's DNA), scientists are finding that how parents treat their children is filtered through the prism of DNA. Parents may intuit that, as they notice that what worked with one child is failing abysmally with another, but now science is pinpointing exactly what combinations of nature and nurture spell gridlock. It is finally dawning on experts that "individual genetic differences are the 800-pound gorilla of child development," says Jack Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. "The promise of genomics is that you will be able to tailor experiences as we tailor drugs."
Research showing that the most scientifically rigorous child-rearing advice can blow up on you couldn't come at a worse time for the millions of American parents who are desperate for direction. They are gobbling up how-to books and DVDs, even hiring coaches and consultants. They are tearing their hair out over conflicting advice on even such basics as sleep—let baby cry herself to sleep? Co-sleep? (As it turns out, the conflicting advice may reflect the fact that the "experts' " experience happens to have been with children whose genetic disposition is amenable to their way of doing things.) More than earlier generations, new parents are panicked that they're going to screw up. That feeling is fed by posts on Web sites such as UrbanBaby, in which someone, somewhere, can be counted on to flame your every parenting decision. But for parents who look back in sadness—perplexed that although they did everything "right," their child is not as kind, or intelligent, or self-confident, or well adjusted as the recipes promised—the emerging science offers an explanation, and perhaps an out: with the DNA stacked against you, it wasn't your fault.
One of the strongest and most counterintuitive findings in this nascent field is that children with a sweet temperament, which is under strong genetic control, are the least likely to emulate their parents and absorb the lessons they teach, while fussy kids are the most likely to do so. Fussy children have a hypersensitive nervous system that is keenly attuned to its surroundings—including what Mom and Dad do and say. In studies that are shaking up textbook dogmas, Jay Belsky of Birkbeck University of London has shown that fussy babies are therefore wired to be more strongly shaped by their parents than mellower children are. It is the fussy baby who, read to night after dutiful night, is likely to develop a love of books; the mellow baby, given the same literary diet, might just as easily grow into a teen who has no interest in reading anything longer than a text message. The mellow baby, immune to your charms, is more likely to show signs of road rage from the day she first takes her tricycle out for a spin, even though she grew up watching your saintly temper control. Children who go with the flow of new people and new situations are like Teflon: good parenting doesn't stick to them—but neither, necessarily, does bad parenting. They're the young adults who can't form close, meaningful relationships despite the unconditional love you showed them. "Kids with difficult temperaments are more sensitive to the effects of parenting," says Belsky. "You can get by with sloppier parenting if you have a 'good temperament' kid." Even children who fall between the extremes are generally closer to one than the other.
Although whether you have an easy or a fussy child is obvious, other innate differences that shape whether and how a child will respond to how parents raise them are less apparent. But since they reflect the presence of a DNA variant, they are all candidates for being pinpointed with a genetic test that will help parents know what to expect:If there is one thing experts on child development agree on, it is that kids learn best when they are allowed to make mistakes and feel the consequences. So Mom and Dad hold back as their toddler tries again and again to cram a round peg into a square hole. They feel her pain as playmates shun her for being pushy, hoping she'll learn to back off. They let their teen stay up too late before a test, hoping a dismal grade will teach her to get a good night's sleep but believing that ordering her to get to bed right now will not: kids who experience setbacks rather than having them short-circuited by a controlling parent learn not to repeat the dumb behavior.
But not, it seems, all kids. In about 30 percent, the coils of their DNA carry a glitch, one that leaves their brains with few dopamine receptors, molecules that act as docking ports for one of the neurochemicals that carry our thoughts and emotions. A paucity of dopamine receptors is linked to an inability to avoid self-destructive behavior such as illicit drug use. But the effects spill beyond such extremes. Children with the genetic variant are unable to learn from mistakes. No matter how many tests they blow by partying the night before, the lesson just doesn't sink in.
The discovery, reported last December, is part of what is fast becoming the newest frontier in studies of why children turn out as they do. Since the first advice book for American parents appeared in 1811, the child-rearing industry, as well as researchers who have made child development a science, have assumed that, although every child is an individual, there are certain universals. If parents are too take-charge about homework, the child becomes disengaged and eventually gives up; if they are warm and affectionate, kids don't act out. But while most children do respond the way research shows, there have always been "outliers," kids who don't turn out the way experts promise.
• The gene variant that influences whether children learn from their mistakes. With the misspelled gene, brains have about 30 percent fewer dopamine receptors and less activity in the brain's frontal cortex (the site of higher-order thinking, including monitoring negative feedback) and hippocampus (memory) than do people with the more common form of the gene. In an experiment at the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research in Germany, people with the misspelling weren't able to avoid choices that they were told over and over were incorrect. Numerous other studies have linked this gene variant to addiction, obesity and compulsive gambling, suggesting that the underlying problem is trouble learning the negative consequences of your actions.
• The DNA variant that affects whether a baby's brain development will be spurred by breast-feeding, which has been reported to confer an extra half-dozen or so IQ points by kindergarten. But not all breast-fed babies are little Einsteins, making their mothers wonder why all the milk-stained blouses didn't seem to boost cognitive development. The reason seems to be that there are two forms of a gene called FADS2. In the 90 percent of babies who carry the "C" form, breast-feeding raises intelligence by an average of nearly seven IQ points, scientists led by Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi of Duke University reported last year. This version of FADS2 produces an enzyme that helps convert the fatty acids in breast milk into compounds that help signals zip along brain neurons and spur neurons to sprout connections, which underlie intelligence, memory and creativity. The 10 percent of babies who carry the other form of the gene lack the enzyme and therefore derive no cognitive benefit from breast-feeding (though they still get an immune-system boost from it).
• DNA variants can protect children from bad parenting. For instance, most girls who are sexually abused are at higher risk for becoming alcoholics, as well as for developing other mental-health problems. But girls who have a "sluggish" version of the gene called MAOA seem to be vaccinated against this effect, reported scientists led by neurogeneticist David Goldman of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism last year. With the active version of MAOA, the brain's hippocampus—which processes emotional experiences and memories—becomes hyperactivated when it remembers something upsetting, such as abuse, and the woman turns to alcohol for solace. With the sluggish version, those memories lose their awful power. Another protective gene insulates children from the effects of an emotionally distant mother, one who is cold and uncaring, who turns away when her child feels the pain of a skinned knee no less than from a crushed dream. That is supposed to make a child more likely to develop "externalizing behavior," acting out in a bid for attention. But children with a certain form of a gene called DRD4, which stands for dopamine-receptor D4, are Teflon-coated, at little to no risk of becoming emotionally insecure as a result of mothers who are emotionally distant, found a 2007 study.
The discoveries questioning the connection between what parents do and how children turn out has not exactly taken the science of child development by storm. That seems to reflect a culture clash within the field. Most researchers who study child development were trained as psychologists, and—to overgeneralize, but only a little—are uncomfortable with or even suspicious of genetics. Geneticists tend to see behavioral research as squishy, not hard science. That produces a body of scientific literature that is remarkably ignorant of genetics. As we reported in this story, we were struck by how clueless so many "experts" in child development were about the new genetics—and how resistant they were to it. Almost all were unaware of the studies showing that genetics acts as a filter between environment and child, letting some influences in and keeping others out. "Even the stuff published in the best journals ignores the underlying genetics," says one leader in the field.
Since companies already offer storefront DNA tests, the day is not far off when parents can determine their child's MAOA or DRD4 status, or the presence of any other variant that influences the effect of parenting. But perhaps it is time to acknowledge that there is only so much influence parents can have. In her best-selling book "I Feel Bad About My Neck," Nora Ephron laments how American society "came to believe in the perfectibility of the child just as it also came to believe in the conflicting theory that virtually everything in human nature was genetic." Both views—that everything is genetic and that parents can transform a child like a lump of clay—are as wrong as wrong can be.
With Jeneen Interlandi and Anna Kuchment in New York and Karen Springen in Chicago
© 2008
Here's an article I found in Newsweek that gives an explanation.
The title is, "But I did Everything Right!"
If there is one thing experts on child development agree on, it is that kids learn best when they are allowed to make mistakes and feel the consequences. So Mom and Dad hold back as their toddler tries again and again to cram a round peg into a square hole. They feel her pain as playmates shun her for being pushy, hoping she'll learn to back off. They let their teen stay up too late before a test, hoping a dismal grade will teach her to get a good night's sleep but believing that ordering her to get to bed right now will not: kids who experience setbacks rather than having them short-circuited by a controlling parent learn not to repeat the dumb behavior.
But not, it seems, all kids. In about 30 percent, the coils of their DNA carry a glitch, one that leaves their brains with few dopamine receptors, molecules that act as docking ports for one of the neurochemicals that carry our thoughts and emotions. A paucity of dopamine receptors is linked to an inability to avoid self-destructive behavior such as illicit drug use. But the effects spill beyond such extremes. Children with the genetic variant are unable to learn from mistakes. No matter how many tests they blow by partying the night before, the lesson just doesn't sink in.
The discovery, reported last December, is part of what is fast becoming the newest frontier in studies of why children turn out as they do. Since the first advice book for American parents appeared in 1811, the child-rearing industry, as well as researchers who have made child development a science, have assumed that, although every child is an individual, there are certain universals. If parents are too take-charge about homework, the child becomes disengaged and eventually gives up; if they are warm and affectionate, kids don't act out. But while most children do respond the way research shows, there have always been "outliers," kids who don't turn out the way experts promise.
After years of ignoring those children, a few scientists now realize that they are telling us something that promises to revolutionize our understanding of child development. In an echo of "personalized medicine" (matching drugs to people's DNA), scientists are finding that how parents treat their children is filtered through the prism of DNA. Parents may intuit that, as they notice that what worked with one child is failing abysmally with another, but now science is pinpointing exactly what combinations of nature and nurture spell gridlock. It is finally dawning on experts that "individual genetic differences are the 800-pound gorilla of child development," says Jack Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. "The promise of genomics is that you will be able to tailor experiences as we tailor drugs."
Research showing that the most scientifically rigorous child-rearing advice can blow up on you couldn't come at a worse time for the millions of American parents who are desperate for direction. They are gobbling up how-to books and DVDs, even hiring coaches and consultants. They are tearing their hair out over conflicting advice on even such basics as sleep—let baby cry herself to sleep? Co-sleep? (As it turns out, the conflicting advice may reflect the fact that the "experts' " experience happens to have been with children whose genetic disposition is amenable to their way of doing things.) More than earlier generations, new parents are panicked that they're going to screw up. That feeling is fed by posts on Web sites such as UrbanBaby, in which someone, somewhere, can be counted on to flame your every parenting decision. But for parents who look back in sadness—perplexed that although they did everything "right," their child is not as kind, or intelligent, or self-confident, or well adjusted as the recipes promised—the emerging science offers an explanation, and perhaps an out: with the DNA stacked against you, it wasn't your fault.
One of the strongest and most counterintuitive findings in this nascent field is that children with a sweet temperament, which is under strong genetic control, are the least likely to emulate their parents and absorb the lessons they teach, while fussy kids are the most likely to do so. Fussy children have a hypersensitive nervous system that is keenly attuned to its surroundings—including what Mom and Dad do and say. In studies that are shaking up textbook dogmas, Jay Belsky of Birkbeck University of London has shown that fussy babies are therefore wired to be more strongly shaped by their parents than mellower children are. It is the fussy baby who, read to night after dutiful night, is likely to develop a love of books; the mellow baby, given the same literary diet, might just as easily grow into a teen who has no interest in reading anything longer than a text message. The mellow baby, immune to your charms, is more likely to show signs of road rage from the day she first takes her tricycle out for a spin, even though she grew up watching your saintly temper control. Children who go with the flow of new people and new situations are like Teflon: good parenting doesn't stick to them—but neither, necessarily, does bad parenting. They're the young adults who can't form close, meaningful relationships despite the unconditional love you showed them. "Kids with difficult temperaments are more sensitive to the effects of parenting," says Belsky. "You can get by with sloppier parenting if you have a 'good temperament' kid." Even children who fall between the extremes are generally closer to one than the other.
Although whether you have an easy or a fussy child is obvious, other innate differences that shape whether and how a child will respond to how parents raise them are less apparent. But since they reflect the presence of a DNA variant, they are all candidates for being pinpointed with a genetic test that will help parents know what to expect:If there is one thing experts on child development agree on, it is that kids learn best when they are allowed to make mistakes and feel the consequences. So Mom and Dad hold back as their toddler tries again and again to cram a round peg into a square hole. They feel her pain as playmates shun her for being pushy, hoping she'll learn to back off. They let their teen stay up too late before a test, hoping a dismal grade will teach her to get a good night's sleep but believing that ordering her to get to bed right now will not: kids who experience setbacks rather than having them short-circuited by a controlling parent learn not to repeat the dumb behavior.
But not, it seems, all kids. In about 30 percent, the coils of their DNA carry a glitch, one that leaves their brains with few dopamine receptors, molecules that act as docking ports for one of the neurochemicals that carry our thoughts and emotions. A paucity of dopamine receptors is linked to an inability to avoid self-destructive behavior such as illicit drug use. But the effects spill beyond such extremes. Children with the genetic variant are unable to learn from mistakes. No matter how many tests they blow by partying the night before, the lesson just doesn't sink in.
The discovery, reported last December, is part of what is fast becoming the newest frontier in studies of why children turn out as they do. Since the first advice book for American parents appeared in 1811, the child-rearing industry, as well as researchers who have made child development a science, have assumed that, although every child is an individual, there are certain universals. If parents are too take-charge about homework, the child becomes disengaged and eventually gives up; if they are warm and affectionate, kids don't act out. But while most children do respond the way research shows, there have always been "outliers," kids who don't turn out the way experts promise.
• The gene variant that influences whether children learn from their mistakes. With the misspelled gene, brains have about 30 percent fewer dopamine receptors and less activity in the brain's frontal cortex (the site of higher-order thinking, including monitoring negative feedback) and hippocampus (memory) than do people with the more common form of the gene. In an experiment at the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research in Germany, people with the misspelling weren't able to avoid choices that they were told over and over were incorrect. Numerous other studies have linked this gene variant to addiction, obesity and compulsive gambling, suggesting that the underlying problem is trouble learning the negative consequences of your actions.
• The DNA variant that affects whether a baby's brain development will be spurred by breast-feeding, which has been reported to confer an extra half-dozen or so IQ points by kindergarten. But not all breast-fed babies are little Einsteins, making their mothers wonder why all the milk-stained blouses didn't seem to boost cognitive development. The reason seems to be that there are two forms of a gene called FADS2. In the 90 percent of babies who carry the "C" form, breast-feeding raises intelligence by an average of nearly seven IQ points, scientists led by Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi of Duke University reported last year. This version of FADS2 produces an enzyme that helps convert the fatty acids in breast milk into compounds that help signals zip along brain neurons and spur neurons to sprout connections, which underlie intelligence, memory and creativity. The 10 percent of babies who carry the other form of the gene lack the enzyme and therefore derive no cognitive benefit from breast-feeding (though they still get an immune-system boost from it).
• DNA variants can protect children from bad parenting. For instance, most girls who are sexually abused are at higher risk for becoming alcoholics, as well as for developing other mental-health problems. But girls who have a "sluggish" version of the gene called MAOA seem to be vaccinated against this effect, reported scientists led by neurogeneticist David Goldman of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism last year. With the active version of MAOA, the brain's hippocampus—which processes emotional experiences and memories—becomes hyperactivated when it remembers something upsetting, such as abuse, and the woman turns to alcohol for solace. With the sluggish version, those memories lose their awful power. Another protective gene insulates children from the effects of an emotionally distant mother, one who is cold and uncaring, who turns away when her child feels the pain of a skinned knee no less than from a crushed dream. That is supposed to make a child more likely to develop "externalizing behavior," acting out in a bid for attention. But children with a certain form of a gene called DRD4, which stands for dopamine-receptor D4, are Teflon-coated, at little to no risk of becoming emotionally insecure as a result of mothers who are emotionally distant, found a 2007 study.
The discoveries questioning the connection between what parents do and how children turn out has not exactly taken the science of child development by storm. That seems to reflect a culture clash within the field. Most researchers who study child development were trained as psychologists, and—to overgeneralize, but only a little—are uncomfortable with or even suspicious of genetics. Geneticists tend to see behavioral research as squishy, not hard science. That produces a body of scientific literature that is remarkably ignorant of genetics. As we reported in this story, we were struck by how clueless so many "experts" in child development were about the new genetics—and how resistant they were to it. Almost all were unaware of the studies showing that genetics acts as a filter between environment and child, letting some influences in and keeping others out. "Even the stuff published in the best journals ignores the underlying genetics," says one leader in the field.
Since companies already offer storefront DNA tests, the day is not far off when parents can determine their child's MAOA or DRD4 status, or the presence of any other variant that influences the effect of parenting. But perhaps it is time to acknowledge that there is only so much influence parents can have. In her best-selling book "I Feel Bad About My Neck," Nora Ephron laments how American society "came to believe in the perfectibility of the child just as it also came to believe in the conflicting theory that virtually everything in human nature was genetic." Both views—that everything is genetic and that parents can transform a child like a lump of clay—are as wrong as wrong can be.
With Jeneen Interlandi and Anna Kuchment in New York and Karen Springen in Chicago
© 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Breezey's nieces and nephews
CCI breeder, Buley, (Breezey's sister, Wyanne's aunt) whelped 13 pups last night in just under 8 hours! What a good girl! 6 girls 7 boys, all doing well!
Handsome Wooten
Won't Wyanne be surprised when she comes home (after a LONG 5 weeks) to find that all her toys have been moved, sniffed, chewed, some actually destroyed, thereby absent? Wooten certainly liked to give each one his attention.
Ben was kind enough to lend him to me so that I would have a dog at the CCI booth at challengeair. What a worthwhile experience to see so many children and their friends and families enjoy the joy of a plane ride.
Wooten was an excellent ambassador for CCI.
Mail Art
I have so much fun making these. Anyone interested in commissioning a piece for a special occasion?
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